Klaske Glashouwer

University of Groningen | RUG · Department of Psychology

Women with high body dissatisfaction look less at their ‘beautiful’ body parts than their ‘ugly’ body parts. This study tested the robustness of this selective viewing pattern and examined the influence of positive body exposure on body-dissatisfied women's attention for ‘ugly’ and ‘beautiful’ body parts. In women with high body dissatisfaction (N...

Objective: The aim was to investigate whether a computer-based evaluative conditioning intervention improves body image in adolescents with an eating disorder. Positive effects were found in earlier studies in healthy female students in a laboratory and a field setting. This study is the first to test evaluative conditioning in a clinical sample un...

In this article we present a theoretical model that points to disgust-induced avoidance as a mechanism that can help explain the persistent and excessive food restriction in individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN). Disgust is characterized by intense negative feelings of revulsion and an overwhelming and irresistible urge to avoid potential disgust...

Objective Low satisfaction with normative life domains might be an important factor in the persistence of anorexia nervosa (AN). Initial evidence in non‐clinical samples showed that lower satisfaction with normative life domains was related to more intense eating disorder symptoms. As a critical next step, the current study examined satisfaction wi...

Disgust-based body image concerns can bias autobiographical memory towards the recall and avoidant processing of disgust-related memories of the own body. Repeated exposure to such memories may help breaking avoidance and promote the habituation of disgust, thereby lowering body concerns. Using a within-participant experimental design, we tested if...

People with a negative body image may be more likely to recall negative memories of their body, but also be motivated to avoid retrieving specific memories to prevent triggering aversive emotions (e.g., disgust). Such inclination to retain at a global level of memory recall may hamper the correction of their negative body image. In previous researc...

Individuals with an eating disorder (ED) often report to be disgusted by their body. Body‐related self‐disgust could play an important role in the development and maintenance of EDs. We investigated if women with relatively high ED symptom scores indeed respond with disgust upon exposure to their body as indexed by facial electromyography (fEMG) of...

Autobiographical memories involving the own body are likely an important factor in defining people’s body images. People with a negative body image may not only be more likely to recall negative/repulsive memories of their body, but also be motivated to avoid retrieving specific memories to prevent triggering aversive emotions (e.g., disgust). Such...

The prevalence of a negative body image among women is high. Because of its serious consequences for individuals’ mental health, there is an urgent need to improve current body image interventions. Recent studies using evaluative conditioning to strengthen the association between women’s body and positive (social) stimuli have shown promising resul...

Objective: Cross-sectional research provides robust evidence that individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN) report higher punishment sensitivity (PS) than individuals without an eating disorder (ED). High PS might interfere with treatment motivation and the ability to learn from experience. The current study took a longitudinal approach to test predi...

A negative body image and appraisals of disgust with one’s (physical) self reflect schematic representations of one’s body, which we classified under the term repulsive body image (RBI). We propose that an RBI biases autobiographical memory processing towards schema (=RBI)-congruent and over-general memories. Women with high (H RBI ; n = 61) and lo...

Objective: Satisfaction with normative life domains has been proposed as an important factor in the persistence of anorexia nervosa (AN). Initial evidence from a cross-sectional study indicated that individuals with AN reported lower satisfaction with normative life domains than individuals without an eating disorder. As an important next step in...

The term Repulsive Body Image (RBI) refers to a schematic construct combining body-directed self-disgust and other negative body image features, that is assumed to bias information processing, including autobiographical memory retrieval. When specific memories about the own body are retrieved, intense self-disgust may arise and trigger urges to esc...

We developed and examined the construct validity of the Disgust Avoidance Questionnaire (DAQ) as a measure of people’s inclination to prevent experiencing disgust (disgust prevention) and to escape from the experience of disgust (disgust escape). In a stepwise item-reduction (Study 1; N = 417) using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) based on a 4-su...

The term Repulsive Body Image (RBI) refers to a schematic construct combining body-directed self-disgust and other negative body image features. As a self-schema, the RBI is assumed to bias information processing, including autobiographical memory retrieval. When specific memories about the own body are retrieved in a direct (automatic) fashion, in...

Background: Although previous studies have shown an inverse relation between life meaning and eating disorder symptoms, the correlational nature of this evidence precludes causal inferences. Therefore, this study used an experimental approach to test the causal impact of life meaning on individuals' weight and shape concerns. Methods: Female studen...

The repulsive body image (RBI) describes a schematic representation of the own body marked by body-directed self-disgust and other body image concerns. This RBI may bias autobiographical memory processing towards RBI-congruent memories, which would be expected to be overgeneral, because disgust may promote the avoidance of specific memories. In the...

We developed and examined the construct validity of the Disgust Avoidance Questionnaire (DAQ) as a measure of people’s inclination to prevent experiencing disgust (disgust prevention) and to escape from the experience of disgust (disgust escape). In a stepwise item-reduction (sample 1; n = 417) using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) based on a 4-s...

Previously, adolescents with anorexia nervosa (AN) showed reduced attentional engagement with food cues compared to adolescents without eating disorder (Jonker, Glashouwer, Hoekzema, Ostafin, & De Jong, 2019). This study tested whether (i) improvement in eating disorder symptoms and BMI are related to an increase in attentional engagement with food...

This study examined whether adolescents with anorexia nervosa (AN) are more sensitive to punishment and less sensitive to reward than a non-eating disorder comparison group. Both self-report and performance measures were used to index reward and punishment sensitivity. Participants were adolescents with AN (n = 69) and an individually matched compa...

Background and objectives: Drive for thinness is considered an important factor in the onset and maintenance of negative body image and can be conceptualized as a motivational approach tendency towards thin bodies. The goal of this study was to test whether training thinness-related approach-avoidance tendencies is effective in improving body sati...

Although it has been proposed that obese and healthy weight individuals might differ in their reward and punishment sensitivity, the literature shows diverse and inconsistent findings. The current study was set out to examine the role of reward and punishment sensitivity in adolescent obesity by differentiating between reward responsivity and rewar...

Body image disturbance is an important feature of Anorexia Nervosa (AN). Some researchers have argued that body image disturbance is not just a symptom of AN, but plays a causal role in the development, persistence, and relapse of AN. Our aim was to systematically review the existing empirical evidence concerning the role of the cognitive-affective...

The aim was to investigate whether a computer-based evaluative conditioning (EC) procedure using positive social feedback is effective in enhancing body satisfaction. Prior findings in three small-scale studies were mixed showing positive effects in pre-clinical samples, but not in a clinical sample of eating disorder patients. Therefore, our main...

This study tested the capacity of a modified Bouncing Image Training Task (BITT) to enhance unsuccessful dieters' attentional disengagement from food cues. Unsuccessful dieters were assigned to a training group performing daily BITT sessions for one week (n = 57) or a waitlist control group (n = 56). Change in attention was assessed using a visual...

Background and objectives: Anorexia Nervosa (AN) patients are characterized by an excessive restriction of their food-intake. Prior research using an Affective Simon Task (AST) with food as a task-irrelevant feature, provided evidence for the view that AN patients' ability to refrain from food is facilitated by reduced automatic approach tendencie...

This study examined differences in food-related Attentional Bias (AB) between patients with Anorexia Nervosa (AN) and adolescents without an eating disorder. AB was assessed with an Attentional Response to Distal versus Proximal Emotional Information (ARDPEI) task that was specifically designed to differentiate between attentional engagement with a...

Body image disturbance is a core characteristic of anorexia nervosa, which might be grounded in distortions in schematic body representations. In line with this, several studies showed that when walking through door-like apertures of different widths, individuals with anorexia nervosa move as if their bodies are larger than they actually are. They...

Self-esteem has not only been observed to be generally low in depression and anxiety, but also unstable. Few studies have looked at unstable self-esteem in clinical samples. The present study compared self-reported self-esteem instability across current depression (n = 60), anxiety (n = 111), and comorbid depression/anxiety (n = 71), remitted depre...

Body dissatisfaction refers to a negative appreciation of one’s own body stemming from a discrepancy between how one perceives his/her body (actual body image) and how he/she wants it to be (ideal body image). To circumvent the limitations of self-report measures of body image, measures were developed that allow for a distinction between actual and...

Consistent with the view that disgust might be involved in persistent body dissatisfaction, there is preliminary evidence showing a positive correlation between measures of negative body image and indices of both trait disgust and self-directed disgust. In two correlational studies among undergraduates (N = 577 and N = 346, respectively) we aimed a...

Regression residuals for all mediation analyses. (PDF)

Identifying predictors of depression recurrence may highlight targets for relapse prevention. This study tested the hypothesis that strength of implicit and explicit self-depressed associations (SDA) following recovery would lower the threshold for the recurrence of depression. Two main analyses were conducted to test: (i) predictive validity of SD...

Background and objectives: Research shows that people tend to consider believable conclusions as valid and unbelievable conclusions as invalid (belief bias). When applied to anxiogenic beliefs, this belief bias could well hinder the correction of dysfunctional convictions. Previous work has shown that high socially anxious students indeed display...

Background: Dual processing models of psychopathology emphasize the relevance of differentiating between deliberative self-evaluative processes (explicit self-esteem; ESE) and automatically-elicited affective self-associations (implicit self-esteem; ISE). It has been proposed that both low ESE and ISE would be involved in major depressive disorder...

More than 80% of obese adolescents will become obese adults, and it is therefore important to enhance insight into characteristics that underlie the development and maintenance of overweight and obesity at a young age. The current study is the first to focus on attentional biases towards rewarding and punishing cues as potentially important factors...

Example of screen-setup of the Spatial Orienting Task (SOT). Example of blue cue, followed by target in the uncued location (i.e., hard target) with subsequent slow response (i.e., negative feedback). From " Reward-related attentional biases and adolescent substance use: The TRAILS study", by M.E. Van Hemel-Ruiter, P.J. De Jong, A. J. Oldehinkel, a...

Bivariate correlations of adjusted-BMI and adjusted-BMI change variables. (DOCX)

Number of participants in the low and high risk profile groups in the total TRAILS population (i.e., population) and in the focus cohort of participants who performed laboratory tasks. From " Reward-related attentional biases and adolescent substance use: The TRAILS study", by M.E. Van Hemel-Ruiter, P.J. De Jong, A. J. Oldehinkel, and B. Ostafin, 2...

To help explain the recurrent nature of major depressive disorder, we tested the hypothesis that depressive episodes and/or the duration of depressive symptoms may give rise to persistent dysfunctional implicit and/or more explicit self-associations, which in turn may place people at risk for the recurrence of symptoms. We therefore examined, in th...

Short-term administration of benzodiazepines (BZD) was found to prolong reaction time (RT) in experimental studies. However, studies on long-term BZD use did not always adjust for important confounders and showed inconsistent results. We aimed to identify a possible relationship between long-term BZD use and RT in BZD users of this large cross-sect...

Cognitive reactivity to sad mood is a vulnerability marker of depression. Implicit self-depressed associations are related to depression status and reduced remission probability. It is unknown whether these cognitive vulnerabilities precede the first onset of depression. To test the predictive value of cognitive reactivity and implicit self-depress...

Comparison of in- and excluded participants on demographic and clinical variables. * several participants had missing data on more than one measure, hence the numbers do not add up to the total of 174 participants excluded. DD = depressive disorder, MDD = major depressive disorder, family history = family history of anxiety and/or depressive disord...

Predicted probability plots. Derived from bivariate regression analyses. Grey areas represent 95% confidence intervals. For questionnaires, the x-axis extends the possible range. For the measures education and implicit self-depressed associations, the observed range is represented on the x-axis. Note that a history of anxiety diagnoses was also fou...

Correlation matrix. * = p≤.05; ** = p≤.01; *** = p≤.001. DD incidence = incidence of depressive disorders, family history = family history of anxiety and/or depression, NLE = Negative Life Events; IDS-SR = Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology – Self Report; Neuroticism = neuroticism subscale of the NEO-FFI; ISDA = Implicit Self-Depressed Associat...

Multivariate binary logistic regression for depression incidence. OR = Odds Ratio; 95% CI = 95% confidence interval. NLE = Negative Life Events; IDS-SR = Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology – Self Report; Neuroticism = neuroticism subscale of the NEO-FFI; ISDA = Implicit Self-Depressed Associations (IAT); CR = Cognitive Reactivity (LEIDS-R). (DO...

To explain fear of blushing, it has been proposed that individuals with fear of blushing overestimate the social costs of their blushing. Current information-processing models emphasize the relevance of differentiating between more automatic and more explicit cognitions, as both types of cognitions may independently influence behavior. The present...

Pak aan is een behandelprotocol voor depressieve kinderen, dat net verschenen is1. De meeste verklaringsmodellen gaan ervan uit dat depressie ontstaat door een wisselwerking tussen iemands (cognitieve) kwetsbaarheid en uitlokkende stressoren. Dit behandelprotocol richt zich met name op het verminderen van de cognitieve kwetsbaarheden van depressiev...

Negative self-cognitions are assumed to play an important role in the onset of anxiety disorders. Current dual-process models emphasize the relevance of differentiating between more automatic and more deliberate self-cognitions in this respect. Therefore, this study was designed to test the prognostic value of both deliberate and automatic self-anx...

Dysfunctional self-schemas are assumed to play an important role in suicidal ideation. According to recent information-processing models, it is important to differentiate between 'explicit' beliefs and automatic associations. Explicit beliefs stem from the weighting of propositions and their corresponding 'truth' values, while automatic association...

BACKGROUND: Cognitive theory points to the importance of negative self-schemas in the onset and maintenance of depression and anxiety disorders. Hereby, it is important to distinguish between automatic and explicit self-schemas, reflecting different cognitive-motivational systems. This study tested whether patients with a current major depression...

Individuals reporting Childhood Abuse (CA) (i.e., emotional neglect, emotional-, physical- and sexual-abuse) are marked by increased explicit (i.e. self-reported) negative self-associations, and an increased risk to develop depression or anxiety disorders. Automatic self-associations might play an important role in the development and maintenance o...

Cognitive theory points to the importance of negative self-schemas in the onset and maintenance of depression and anxiety disorders. Hereby, it is important to distinguish between automatic and explicit self-schemas, reflecting different cognitive-motivational systems. This study tested whether patients with a current major depression and/or anxiet...

Gebaseerd op de veronderstelling dat persoonlijkheid een belangrijke bijdrage levert aan het ontstaan en de instandhouding van psychische klachten probeert dit artikel een link te leggen tussen zogenaamde 'impliciete persoonlijkheidstrekken' en psychopathologie. Doorgaans wordt persoonlijkheid gemeten met behulp van zelfrapportage vragen- lijsten,...